Winston Leonce served between 2009 and 2017 with The Royal Regiment of Scotland, leaving with the rank of Lance Corporal. Winston advised “my most recent role involved supervising and mentoring Infantrymen on daily tasking. Leadership as a Lance Corporal was instilled in me by the army, whether through training for deployment or just simply on camp. The army taught me to work effectively as a part of a team, working as a unit to accomplish set tasking and continuous development in learning new skills or languages.
I am now working as a Construction Site Manager for Transport for London (TFL). I attended a Project Day hosted by BuildForce and Morgan Sindall at the TFL office, and was able to connect and show my passion for the construction sector. Practically, the thing that helped me most was the support and guidance BuildForce provided– Angela helped with the career chat to help me understand my skills; rewriting my CV for me and the interview prep to ensure I was ready to sit in front of an employer. Caroline helped me navigate the process of finding a role and connecting me to employers. BuildForce team were incredible. Personally, I also got a lot from the love and support of my family and my comrades that left before me.
The most challenging thing was the reality of the world, things like managing bills, such as paying for the dentist, which I never had to do in the army and also budgeting for different expenses and hidden costs that you don’t really pay for whilst serving. I would have liked to have seen more support in terms of finding housing, searching for a job or the simple understanding of the skills we military personnel possess. We are guilty of underselling ourselves as this doesn’t come naturally to us.
In my current role is almost the same as my last job in the military, ensuring that the health and safety guidelines and procedures are followed, and works are carried out to the agreed and designed structure of TFL.
A typical day involves getting to site, firstly ensuring the contractors all have the correct PPE, making sure that the site is operating to health and safety standards, supervising the contractors carrying out their tasking safely and writing up daily reports to update the stakeholders on the progress of the project.
The skills I see as being transferable from my military career are the obvious one, leadership, the ability to follow rules and regulations, having the ability to understand a task and working well and effectively with others. Every single skill I have learned and used in the military on a daily basis I have now utilised in my new role.
My top tips are believe in yourself, you will learn as you go along and make sure you enjoy the process.
As a veteran we are punctual, skilful, and have a strong ability to plan ahead, all valued qualities in construction.